The Thing About Cats
by quicksilversquared
Summary: Cats like knocking things over, and Adrien and Marinette's cats are no exception. The cats like watching things fall to the floor and smash into a million pieces. It's destructive and annoying. So why are Adrien and Marinette encouraging it? (Aged-up domestic fluff)


Adrien and Marinette's cats really, _really_ liked their new apartment. The windowsills were wide enough to lay on, there was more space to prowl and more places to hide, there was more furniture they could jump up on, and best of all, there were _plenty_ of new housewarming gifts to knock onto the floor.

Adrien and Marinette were less amused.

"It's a wonder they haven't actually broken anything yet," Adrien said in part amusement, part frustration as he bent down to snag the TV. remote off of the floor for the third time that week- and it was only Tuesday. The worst damage the cats had caused so far was a chip in a mug from where it had hit the floor. There was a noise from the kitchen and Adrien swore, running into the kitchen in time to snag their grey cat and lift her off of the counter before she could shove the salt shaker to the floor.

"Sophie, don't do that," Adrien scolded, dropping the grey cat on the couch. She immediately meowed at him and jumped to the floor, skittering away to find their other cat and cause more trouble. Adrien could only sigh.

"I _told_ you that would be a problem when you looked at the place," Plagg grouched, flying out of Adrien's pocket. He wasn't a huge fan of the cats, not since Ginger had stumbled across him sleeping on the bedside table and had tried to bat him off of the edge. "I told you that the chairs at the counter would just make it easier for the cats to get up there, but did you listen to me? Noooo, of course not."

Adrien sighed, flopping onto the couch Sophie had just vacated. This was about the tenth time Plagg had said that, and they had only moved into the apartment a little over a week ago. Adrien was getting a little tired of it.

"Are the cats knocking things off of the tables again?" Marinette's voice came from above Adrien's head, and he cracked his eyes open to peer up at his girlfriend.

"Plagg's saying 'I-told-you-so' again."

"Plagg, go be useful and do your kitty-communing with the cats and make them behave."

Plagg sniffed and Adrien pictured him crossing his arms. "I'm _not_ an actual cat, in case you haven't noticed. I can't do that."

" _Try,_ " Marinette suggested, narrowing her eyes at Plagg. Plagg let out a huff and flew off with a grumble.

"I'm sure they'll settle down as they get older," Marinette said as she sat on the couch and curled up on top of Adrien. There was a _thud_ from their bedroom and both of them sighed.

"I just hope it happens sooner rather than later."

* * *

"Ginger, get down from there!"

Marinette glared over at the sleek brown cat currently perched on the kitchen island. The cat blinked back at her, bored and clearly not even remotely bothered by her yelling. Instead, she reached over for the glass Marinette had left sitting there and started pushing it towards the edge, a centimeter at a time.

"Don't you _dare-_ " Marinette started before cutting herself off to dodge around the island in time to catch the glass and prevent most of its contents from spilling. Ginger let out a self-satisfied _mrow_ and hopped easily off of the counter, sashaying across the floor in search of her partner in crime, who was no doubt napping on the bed and getting hair all over Adrien's pillow.

"Hey, there's Trouble One," Adrien said jokingly as he rounded the corner and nearly tripped over the retreating cat. "I was wondering where she went."

"She was trying to break our glassware," Marinette grumbled, setting the glass back on the counter where she had left it earlier and reaching for a rag to wipe up the spilled coffee on the floor. "I swear, nothing in this place is safe."

"The things on top of the bookshelf haven't been touched. I think it's too high for them to jump up, though." Adrien watched as Marinette stood up, tossing the rag in the sink as she did. "But I caught Sophie trying to shove my pencil cup off of the table yesterday. She had moved it all the way from the middle to the very edge."

Marinette let out a snort before clapping a hand to her mouth. She took a moment to compose herself enough to speak. "She's definitely determined."

"It's definitely good that we don't have anything _too_ expensive and breakable in the house," Adrien said, rolling his eyes. "Imagine what would happen if Ginger and Sophie got loose in Chloe's house."

"Dozens of priceless vases and figurines smashed to bits on the floor within a day," Marinette predicted, rinsing the rag out and handing it over the faucet to dry. "Chloe would wake up the whole city with her screaming."

Adrien's lips twitched.

"We are _not_ asking Chloe to catsit just to see her freak out," Marinette added before Adrien could say anything. "We are _not_ , Adrien."

Adrien grinned at her. "But Chloe was complaining the other day that she's running out of space for her figurines. Ginger and Sophie would help her thin them out a bit. They're very helpful with stuff like that."

 _"Adrien_."

"What?"

"No."

* * *

The vase sitting on the kitchen counter was quite possibly the most hideous thing they had ever seen. If the color scheme wasn't bad enough, the pattern on it would make even the most amateur designer cringe.

And of course, it was all Adrien's job's fault.

As a very in-demand model, Adrien had a lot of admirers. Most of them were mature enough to realize that he was very much taken, but some remained hopeful that they could somehow tempt him away from Marinette. As a result, it really wasn't that uncommon for Adrien to receive cards and presents from his fans, especially around the holidays. Most found their way to secondhand stores really quickly, but others...

...well, others were too weird to donate.

"I'm actually slightly terrified," Adrien said as they stared at the vase of roses. It had Adrien's name scrawled all over it, surrounded by hearts and occasionally paired with the name of the girl who had sent it in the first place (with their last names hyphenated together, of course). "What made her think that _this_ was somehow going to sweep me off of my feet?"

"I- I don't even know," Marinette managed. The vase was quite possibly the ugliest thing she had ever seen, yet they couldn't donate it like they had the others thanks to the names, and _throwing away_ a present, even if it had been unsolicited and was completely unwanted...well, it seemed a little rude. "Let's just leave it for tonight and maybe tomorrow we can figure out what to do with it."

"Yeah," Adrien agreed, and so they left the vase sitting on the kitchen counter as they headed for bed. It didn't take them long to forget about it...

And then they woke up the next morning to an almighty crash.

"What on _earth,_ " Adrien groaned as he rolled over, squinting against the early morning light. "What could we have _possibly_ have left out for the cats to destroy this time?"

"I don't even know," Marinette said, sighing. She reached over to grab her shirt off of the floor where Adrien had tossed it the previous night. "At least they didn't do that in the middle of the night. My alarm is set for five minutes from now anyway."

Adrien eyed her as she slid out of bed, tugging on her long shirt so it would cover more skin. "I don't suppose I could persuade you to stay in bed for a few minutes longer?"

"Nope. Up, kitty." Marinette tossed a pair of pants at his face and slid her feet into the sandals they had for the express purpose of keeping their feet from getting cut on whatever their cats had set their mind on destroying. While they had had decent enough luck their first week with nothing getting broken, their luck came to a halt halfway through Week Two with a smashed mug. "I need to deal with this before I go in to work, because I don't want Ginger or Sophie getting their feet cut on broken glass again." The bills from the vet the first time it happened were enough to persuade her to never let it happen again.

Adrien followed Marinette with a grumble, throwing on clothes as he went. Ad they rounded the corner into the kitchen, they found both cats perched on the counter, staring down on the pink and red remains of the hideous vase Adrien had received the day before. The flowers were scattered all over the floor, tangled and torn amongst the remains of the vase. The whole mess sat in a shallow pool of water.

There was a moment of silence.

"Well, at least we don't need to figure out what to do with it anymore," Marinette finally said, reaching for the broom and dustpan. "Thank you, kitties."

Adrien snorted, following her into the kitchen. "You sound absolutely _heartbroken_ that our cats broke a heartfelt gift from a fan."

"Oh yeah, definitely." Marinette rolled her eyes, crouching to pluck the flowers out of the wreckage. "Heartbroken. Absolutely."

"And I mean, we should _probably_ train the cats to stay off the counter before they smash anything else," Adrien said, tossing the larger pieces into their trash can. "It would be a pity if they, say, smashed that set of personalized set of ceramic figurines Chloe gave us."

"Oh, the awful tacky ones that don't match anything?" Marinette asked, sweeping up the rest of the mess and dumping it in the trash. "And that Chloe engraved with our names so we couldn't get rid of them?"

"Yeah, those."

They exchanged a look, then pulled out the frankly hideous ornaments that Chloe had given them as a housewarming gift and arranged them along the middle of the kitchen island. They turned their back as one, purposefully ignoring the cats as they returned to the bedroom to get ready for the day. By the time they returned to the kitchen for breakfast, the line of figurines had already been disturbed.

"Pity," Marinette said with a straight face as she pushed them back into a straight line. "It looks like the cats like them."

Adrien snorted and passed her a slice of toast.

By the end of the day, two of the five figurines had met their end on the hard kitchen floor. A third fell before dinner, and the last two got shoved off the edge before they went to bed. The cats seemed to have learned from their past experiences with broken things, since they always stayed away from the broken shards on the kitchen floor.

"What a shame," Adrien sighed in the most insincere voice ever as he dumped the remnants of the last two figurines from the dustpan into the trash bin. "Let's not tell Chloe, okay?"

"Of course," Marinette agreed, running the vacuum through the kitchen to make sure all of the small bits were up. "It was a tragic accident that Chloe doesn't need to know about."

"And it absolutely won't happen again," Adrien said, shooing Ginger away from the kitchen.

"Oh, definitely," Marinette agreed.

* * *

Two months later, the two of them found themselves staring at the clay heads decorating their kitchen counter. They were slightly gruesome in their appearance, thanks to the combination of size and the inexperience of the maker.

"I'm sure they were made with good intentions," Marinette said weakly as she turned the Ladybug head around. It was practically life-sized, and it was creeping her out. The young fan that had given the painted clay heads to them had been so _thrilled_ when Ladybug and Chat Noir accepted them, and thankfully both of them had managed to keep from grimacing when they first saw the "gifts". The Ladybug one had a crooked nose and the Chat Noir one wore a gruesome grimace. Both had a slightly green tinge to their skin, and the red of Ladybug's mask and the green of Chat Noir's eyes were just...off.

"Yeah," Adrien echoed weakly. "Except Nino and Alya saw us accept them. We can't _possibly_ keep them, even if we wanted to."

"Exactly."

"But we can't exactly throw away a lovingly given gift when it's in such good shape."

"Right."

The two exchanged a glance before looking out at the living room, where the cats had fled. They hadn't broken anything for two months, largely in thanks to a cream-colored screen Marinette had made to block off the kitchen at night and the lack of breakable things left elsewhere in the house. Marinette and Adrien still had to pick stuff up off of the floor constantly- remotes, calculators, computer mice, scissors, water bottles, pencils- thanks to the cats, and they had no doubts that if the cats were given free rein in the kitchen, they would return to smashing things there as well.

"Let's just... leave these in here," Marinette suggested, leaving the kitchen and turning the lights off. "Maybe they'll, uh, look better in the morning?"

Adrien grinned in understanding as Marinette purposefully left the screen leaning against the wall. They went to bed without another glance at the cats, certain that in the morning, the terrifying heads would be smashed. They felt a little bad since the kid had clearly gone to such great lengths to make the clay figures, but really, what else could they do with them? They didn't have the storage space to keep things they weren't ever going to use or want, and really, they had only accepted the "gifts" to make the kid happy.

The heads were still there the next morning, and the next, and the one after that. No matter how close to the edge of the counter Marinette and Adrien left the heads when they left for work or went to bed, they didn't move at all in the meantime.

"They're not _that_ heavy," Adrien grumbled as Marinette made dinner. He picked up the Ladybug head, grimaced at the blankly staring painted blue eyes, and weighed it in his hand. "I think it must have a foam core in it or something."

Marinette groaned, shaking her head. "I wonder why they didn't just make the heads smaller. Like this, it looks like we have decapitated heads on the counter."

"Didn't you hear? They're this size so we have somewhere to put our masks when we're not superheroing." Adrien grinned and wriggled his eyebrows at Marinette. "Just in time to replace our _old_ mask holders."

"Right, the ones that don't exist." Marinette shoved the casserole pan she had been putting things in into the oven and turned back around to look at the heads. "You don't think that we've accidentally trained the cats to stay out of the kitchen?"

"I didn't think you could _train_ cats." Adrien put the head back down and went back to chopping fruit for their salad. As he spoke, Sophie rounded the corner and twined around his legs. "See? They love the kitchen."

* * *

As the week wore on, the cats still refused to touch the heads. They refused to even so much as jump up on the counter with the heads still sitting there.

"It's the eyes, I think," Adrien said as he made breakfast, seven days after they had first put the sculptures on the counter. He turned around, grimaced at the heads, and tossed a towel over them. "They're _staring_ at me."

Marinette giggled from her spot at their table. "You would think that that would give the cats even greater reason to smash the heads." More giggles. "Revenge on us for not feeding them at the crack of dawn."

Adrien laughed.

As Adrien continued to cook, both cats came slinking into the room. Sophie went to go demand pats from Marinette while Ginger headed for the kitchen. She paused halfway there, regarded the counter and the towel covering the heads curiously, and promptly jumped up.

"Haven't seen you up here for a while," Adrien said cheerfully, giving the cat a short scratch behind the ears. "Come to smash some stuff for us?"

"She'll never try if you watch her," Marinette said, amused. She bent down and lifted Sophie into her lap. "Just turn your back and she'll go for it. You might want to move your juice first, though."

"Of course, of course." Adrien moved his juice over by the stove and, for good measure, moved the measuring cups he had been using as well. "I probably should be wearing my sandals, shouldn't I."

"Mmm. Maybe." Marinette watched Ginger out of the corner of her eye. "She's interested in the heads now that they're covered. She's definitely making sure we're not watching, though."

"Not watching," Adrien sing-songed, making a big show of buttering the pan for crepes.

Marinette snorted and watched the brown cat creep ever closer to the towel-covered heads. She crept closer, closer, reached out a paw to swipe-

-and accidentally pulled the towel off of the heads.

With an earsplitting screech, Ginger flew into the air and shot off the counter, hitting the floor with a _thud_ and racing away into another room.

Adrien and Marinette snorted and broke into laughter as one.

"So close, yet so far," Adrien mourned as he retrieved the pan he had knocked off of the stove when he got startled. "If only we could somehow attach the towels..."

"Wait, I have just the thing," Marinette said. She set Sophie back down on the floor and vanished into her sewing room, emerging with two cloth bags in her hands. "They won't be as loose as the towel, but if it was the faces that were the problem..."

"I think we've scared Ginger off of the counter permanently," Adrien chuckled after a couple minutes passed and there was no sign of their second cat. "Sophie, you're our only hope. Go forth and smash things."

Sophie _meow_ ed and dashed away.

* * *

As soon as Alya stepped into Adrien and Marinette's apartment, she came to a confused halt, eyes locked on the kitchen counter. There, in the middle of the counter, was the awful vase Adrien and Marinette had received for Christmas, in full view of the entire room. Adrien's uncle had given it to them as a late housewarming gift several days prior ( _very_ late; Adrien and Marinette had been living in their apartment for nearly a year now), and apparently the older man had assumed that just because it was expensive, it would also be nice-looking. As a bonus, he had gotten their names written on the vase. Alya was of the opinion that the man was blind.

"Is your uncle, uh, coming to visit?" Alya asked, inspecting the vase. A couple of roses had been stuffed into the vase, but they seemed more of an afterthought than an actual arrangement. They didn't make the vase look any better, and Alya suspected that both Adrien and Marinette knew that. They had both commented on how hideous the paisley pattern was, which meant that they wouldn't have the thing out without a good reason.

"Nah," Adrien said, but he didn't elaborate. An impish grin danced around the corners of his mouth as he set down the tray of snacks on the coffee table. "Drinks?"

"Uh, sure," Nino agreed, and soon all four of them were settled on the couch and chairs in the living room. The cats wandered through ten minutes later, accepting pats for a few minutes before they vanished into the kitchen.

"Have they stopped knocking stuff off of the counter?" Alya asked, frowning as she watched Ginger's tail flick around the corner. She knew the cats had stayed off the counter for some reason a month ago (Marinette and Adrien hadn't ever explained why) and Ginger had only started hopping up again a week ago, but they had apparently resumed their previous activities again. Marinette hadn't left much on the counter, but the vase was maybe a _little_ too close to the edge for comfort. It was a little on the heavy side, but Alya had seen the cats shove even larger things off of counters when they set their minds to it.

Adrien and Marinette had some _very_ determined cats. It would be impressive if it weren't so concerning.

"No," Marinette said simply, and she left it at that. Both she and Adrien sipped serenely at their tea, and neither reacted to the muted _thuds_ that indicated that the cats had gotten up onto the counter. As the clock continued to tick and neither moved to remove the cats from the counter, Alya couldn't help but wonder if maybe the vase being left out was intentional. Her suspicions were confirmed a minute later when there was a loud _CRASH_ in the kitchen and neither Adrien nor Marinette seemed at all surprised.

"Oh dear," Marinette announced after a pause. "The cats seem to have broken something. What a pity."

"Indeed," Adrien said in the same deadpan voice. "That is very sad."

"We will have no choice but to throw it away now, I guess," Marinette said, heaving the most dramatic sigh Alya had ever heard. "Oh no."

"Oh, that's clever," Nino said, amusement tinging his voice as he watched the two of them get up and trudge towards the kitchen. "You get your cats to do the dirty work for you!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Marinette said from the kitchen. "And I resent the accusation." There was a _thud_ as she tossed something into the trash- no doubt a fragment of the vase. "That was a very dear gift from a, uh, very generous relative, and we will mourn its demise dearly."

Adrien only snickered.

Alya eyed the kitchen as the sounds of a clean-up continued. "Uh-huh. And how many unwanted 'gifts' have 'accidentally' gotten broken by your cats?"

"Only a couple," was the mutter in response. "Like, five."

Alya snorted. Nino groaned.

"I thought you donated things you didn't like," Nino said as Adrien reappeared around the corner with one cat under his arm. "Instead of smashing them. Why not just throw it away if you don't like it?"

"We _do_ donate things," Adrien said a bit petulantly. "We donate a _lot_ , but sometimes people engrave our names on whatever they're giving us and then we figure that no one would really want it, especially if it's, well, _ugly._ "

"Or we get stuff from Adrien's fans with his name on it," Marinette said, reentering the living room and letting the other cat loose. It dashed away quickly. "Or his face. We can't exactly _donate_ that, no one would want it and his fans might hear about it."

"They might stop sending things then," Nino pointed out helpfully. "I suppose that might get you bad press, though."

"And we don't just throw it away because, well." Marinette looked a bit sheepish. "It's a shame to throw out perfectly good things, even if they don't look the best...and the cats always are so proud of themselves after they break something."

"You two are _ridiculous_ ," Alya groaned, pressing a hand to her forehead in exasperation. "Oh my _god_. Just throw away the things you don't like and can't donate like normal people!"

"Honestly, now I'm worried about coming over here. What if there are broken shards of whatever under your furniture?" Nino made a big show of peering at the floor, lifting his feet before sliding to the floor and peering under the couch. "Who knows what you would find- oh."

He pulled out a pink, glitter-encrusted envelope and waved it at the sheepish couple. "What's this from?"

"The cats had a bit of fun on Valentine's day," Adrien said with a sheepish smile. "Nathalie brought over this _huge_ box of fanmail that was delivered to the mansion. There's still apparently people who feel the need to send me valentines even though I'm very clearly not interested."

"And then we got distracted and left the box on the counter for longer than we meant to," Marinette said a bit sheepishly. "And the cats knocked it off, and then we figured that they weren't hurting anything-"

"And went back to being 'distracted'," Alya added. Marinette ignored her.

"-and so then they were playing with the envelopes and we _thought_ we got everything picked up but apparently not." Marinette snatched the envelope from Nino. "Oh, look! You can see the tooth marks on the corner of the envelope. That's hilarious."

"You're just trying to distract us from this weird habit you two have," Alya accused, making a swipe for the envelope and missing when Marinette pulled it back out of her reach. "Seriously, you two need to train your cats."

Adrien rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "Cats don't _train_ very well, in case you didn't know. It would be a waste of time to try."

Nino shook his head at them. "Really, how do you know if you don't try? It would be nice if you could actually leave things out without the cats destroying them. Because right now, I can't even leave a glass alone on the table for five minutes without having to worry about the cats knocking it off."

He paused, a sudden smirk flashing across his lips before he continued.

"But, like, if you _aren't_ going to train your cats any time soon, Alya and I have these godawful salt shakers that we've been trying to get rid of..."

" _Nino!"_

* * *

 _A/N: As with most of my stories, this IS a one-shot and is therefore complete._

 _This is kinda-sorta based on a real story- two, in fact! The idea for the clay heads came from a Reader's Digest story where the writer's mother made the awful-looking heads (and their son smashed them via tossing them down the stairs), and the whole "using cats to smash things" idea came from my grandma, who once had a vase that she didn't like (and there were no thrift stores she could donate it to, as far as she knew), so she put it near a set of stairs and her cat knocked it down the stairs and destroyed it._

 _Please leave reviews! They make my day :)_


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